Titan Quest | REVIEW

For a game that originally came out twelve years ago, Titan Quest has certainly made its way across all of the modern platforms. Besides appearing originally on PC, it’s also hit the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as of late, and now it’s also made its way to the Nintendo Switch too. Does it make for a good addition to the system’s library though, or is this one quest that Switch owners just won’t want to go on?

So listen, Titan Quest has been remastered since its initial release so you’re not just jumping into a twelve-year-old game that hasn’t seen improvements here. That being said, whilst it’s a bit prettier to look at and some issues have been rectified over the years, the core formula remains the same.

Titan Quest is an action RPG that send you across a world that’s riddled with mythical beasts known as Titans – the clue is in the title, right? These Titans have escaped their prison and are bringing destruction to Ancient Greece, Egypt and China, so it’s up to you to bring them all down. It’s a simple but effective setup and lays the groundwork for your mighty adventure across the world.

It’s a world full of many different sights to see, towns to visit and quests to take on. Titan Quest is a pretty big game, and whilst you might start in a fairly small village you’ll eventually end up in impressive cities. Don’t worry though – there’s a fast travel system in place that allows you to quickly teleport to previously visited locales, so you can get around easy enough when tackling everything that the game throws your way.

Whilst questing and exploration play a big role in Titan Quest, the bulk of your time will be spent battling its many monsters. Combat is fairly simply to get to grips with, with a simple press of the attack button locking you in on enemies and auto-attacking them with your standard moves. Not having to manually target them actually works really well on console, though there were a handful of moments where it’d auto-target an enemy that was way away from the action as opposed to one that posed a genuine threat to me. It’s clumsy, but fortunately infrequent enough not to be too much of an issue.

You can manually aim attacks at enemies by holding down the attack button though, which highlights the area in which you’re aiming and allows you to unleash attacks. Naturally, this is ideal for some your character’s more powerful moves, with the player able to unlock a wide variety of skills and magic abilities to inflict upon their foes. You’re able to select a Mastery for your character early on which opens up a different skillset for them to work towards. You’ll level up your character during play and are able to decide which skills they unlock too, so there’s a fair bit of flexibility to the system.

The Masteries come in a decent variety, though they essentially boil down to your typical RPG classes: you’ve got the likes of the Nature Mastery which acts as a healer, the Hunting Mastery which acts as an archer, the Storm Mastery which allows you to inflict lightning damage upon your enemies, and the Warfare Mastery which allows you to fight up close and personal effectively – that’s just to name a few too, so I’m sure your favourite class is probably there. Best of all, when you hit level eight you’re able to take on a second mastery, which allows you to mix together the skillsets that best suit you. Want to be a fire blasting archer? Go for it. Or do you want to be a healing tank? You can do that too. It’s an effective means to make a character that’s not only fun to play as, but bloody powerful too.

I’ve already mentioned that Titan Quest is a twelve-year-old game, but to its defence it never feels dated. Sure, it could be a little simple at times, but I had a lot of fun playing it and found both the combat and the questing satisfying. There’s so much to do in the game too, with an absolute ton of side quests on offer – I’d say it’d be easy to sink over forty hours into the game before you see everything. Some of those side quests are a bit guilty of being a bit repetitive and forcing you to grind battles out against similar foes for a while, but hey, they’re entertaining enough and add more meat to Titan Quest’s adventure.

Whilst Titan Quest is fun to play, there’s no denying that there are some issues with the Switch port of the game. You’ll see textures taking a while to load in, some stutters in the frame rate (the game will actually completely freeze momentarily during some busier moments), and even enemies getting completely stuck in the environment. Fortunately, I haven’t come across any hard crashes or any game breaking bugs, but there is definitely an abundance of issues to be found.

A smaller issue I found was that with all of the game’s menus and text, it’s sometimes a little hard to make everything out on the smaller screen when playing in portable mode. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nothing a bit of squinting won’t fix and I certainly had a good time playing through the game on the go, but there’s quite a lot of text to get through. It was never too big of an issue for me personally, but I can imagine that might not be the case for some people.

Gamers eager to get their multiplayer fix with Titan Quest will be pleased to see that the game supports online co-op multiplayer for up to six players, which is actually pretty impressive. Unfortunately though, I haven’t had the chance to try it in time for the review. However, I have played Titan Quest in multiplayer on other platforms and it’s actually made for a pretty great experience. If the multiplayer works (and from what I’ve gathered from early impressions, it does) I can see Titan Quest being a blast to play on the Switch – even if some of the flaws that are present in the single experience creep through.

Summary

The port might not be a perfect one thanks to the performance issues and graphical bugs that pop up, but I had a lot of fun playing Titan Quest on the Nintendo Switch. There’s a heck of a lot of content to get through, plus the combat and questing are satisfying throughout. There’s online multiplayer for up to six players too, and whilst I haven’t had a chance to try yet I could easily see myself sinking hours into it with the right group of players.

There’s no denying it’s not the best version of the game you’re going to play and it could be guilty of being a little too simple at times, but in all Titan Quest is an easy title to recommend to action RPG fans that enjoy themselves a meaty adventure. Just don’t be surprised if you see a few little technical hiccups during your journey…